How we are beating al-Qaeda

[Joemeek]

IT’S fashionable to say that the war in Iraq is lost.
With the horrors of terrorist car bombers murdering innocents and grabbing headlines every day, that’s not surprising.
But it’s not true.
The war for Iraq can still be won — as long as we continue to persevere.
That is the opinion of Britain’s top general in Iraq, Lieutenant-General Graeme Lamb, who has just ended a one-year tour of duty.
He served as deputy to America’s top general in Iraq, General David Petraeus, who commanded the “surge” of attacks on terrorist cells.
When General Lamb arrived in Iraq the situation was appalling. US marines were the subject of 80 attacks a day in Al-Anbar province, where the Sunni and al-Qaeda uprising was fiercest.
Al-Qaeda seemed in control. The Americans reported that the province was virtually lost to the marines. Local tribal leaders had fled.
Not now. Al-Qaeda atrocities have revolted the population. Slicing people’s faces off with piano wire is one of their specialities.
And they throw the severed heads of victims into the streets with the warning that no one should touch them.
Now, the courage of the marines has given people in Al-Anbar confidence that such horrors can be ended and the terrorists defeated.
The tribal leaders are back and asserting themselves against al-Qaeda. “We ARE defeating the al-Qaeda brand,” says General Lamb.
In Fallujah, which the marines liberated in 2004, the business association had only a few members a year ago.
Now it has 350. Confidence is coming back.
Al-Qaeda is also on the run in Salah ad Din province. Similarly, in Diyala.
A year ago in Samarra, al-Qaeda blew up Shi’ite shrine the Golden Mosque in the hope of starting a total civil war. They have failed.
General Lamb is full of admiration for the American soldiers. US casualties have risen in the last few months.
This is because of General Petraeus’s “surge” of thousands of extra troops into areas of Baghdad they had not gone to before.
Despite these losses, American troop morale is high. They trust Petraeus.
So far the British and Americans have handed back eight of the 18 provinces to Iraqi control. Four more are due to be handed over next month.
And Kurdistan in the north is a great success story.
But the political battles are difficult — both in Iraq and the US. Iraqi politicians have failed dismally to co-operate in creating a decent society.Their squabbles are unforgivable and could destroy Iraq’s future. In America the looming presidential election means that politicians are demanding the US quits Iraq.
Such surrender would be a disaster — it could lead to a genocide that would dwarf the horrors in Rwanda and Darfur.
Now is not the time to quit.
And that is why it is so crucial that Gordon Brown resists the temptation to cut and run just to separate himself from Tony Blair.
With consistent courage, especially by the Americans, and grown-up behaviour by Iraqi politicians, Iraq can still make it.

[gixxerboy1]

I'm sorry but do you realise Al-Qaeda wouldn't be there cutting off heads if we did not invade Iraq. More civilians have died in Iraq since we liberated it Then the same amount of years prior to it.

How can anyone not admit Iraq is a disaster.

[Joemeek]

Look at the bigger picture.If you think back to the cold war when America and Russia were producing thousands of nuclear weapons, being that nuclear weapons were never fired, a main part in this was that there was a "return address" if anyone launched first and knowing they would be wiped out also.

With terrorists now, we don't have that return address and this capability getting into their hands would be catastrophic and we know if they got it, they would use it, no question. Therefore shutting these kind of people down is a must.

If you remember, Iraq in 1987 tested several one ton radiological weapons designed to shower radioactive materials on target populations to induce radiation sickness and slow painful deaths.

A sophisticated terrorist group would be capable of designing and building a workable nuclear bomb from stolen plutonium or highly enriched uranium, with potential yields in the kiloton range. This risk must be taken seriously, particularly in light of documented attempts by al Qaeda to acquire nuclear material and nuclear-weapon design information.

Since the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, the uncertain status of nuclear weapons, fissile materials and nuclear scientists in Russia and other former Soviet republics are widely regarded as posing perhaps the most immediate threat of nuclear proliferation and nuclear terrorism. Despite significant assistance from the United States over the last ten years, many of Russias nuclear facilities seem poorly secured, and there is still no comprehensive, verifiable system of nuclear materials accountancy. No one even knows for certain how much nuclear weapons material the Soviet Union produced. With confirmed incidents of Russian-origin fissile materials turning up for sale on the black market, this danger is more than hypothetical.

Or maybe we should have just left them alone, afterall, if we never bothered them, they would leave us alone...right ?

[gixxerboy1]

Look at the bigger picture.If you think back to the cold war when America and Russia were producing thousands of nuclear weapons, being that nuclear weapons were never fired, a main part in this was that there was a "return address" if anyone launched first and knowing they would be wiped out also.

With terrorists now, we don't have that return address and this capability getting into their hands would be catastrophic and we know if they got it, they would use it, no question. Therefore shutting these kind of people down is a must.

If you remember, Iraq in 1987 tested several one ton radiological weapons designed to shower radioactive materials on target populations to induce radiation sickness and slow painful deaths.

A sophisticated terrorist group would be capable of designing and building a workable nuclear bomb from stolen plutonium or highly enriched uranium, with potential yields in the kiloton range. This risk must be taken seriously, particularly in light of documented attempts by al Qaeda to acquire nuclear material and nuclear-weapon design information.

Since the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, the uncertain status of nuclear weapons, fissile materials and nuclear scientists in Russia and other former Soviet republics are widely regarded as posing perhaps the most immediate threat of nuclear proliferation and nuclear terrorism. Despite significant assistance from the United States over the last ten years, many of Russias nuclear facilities seem poorly secured, and there is still no comprehensive, verifiable system of nuclear materials accountancy. No one even knows for certain how much nuclear weapons material the Soviet Union produced. With confirmed incidents of Russian-origin fissile materials turning up for sale on the black market, this danger is more than hypothetical.

Or maybe we should have just left them alone, afterall, if we never bothered them, they would leave us alone...right ?

No But Iraq was far from any of that. If we wanted to fight Al-Quade we could have just stayed in afghanistan and fought them. If we are so worried about Nuclear why arent we doing anything about Iran or North Korea.

You completely made no point about Iraq

[PEWN]

No But Iraq was far from any of that. If we wanted to fight Al-Quade we could have just stayed in afghanistan and fought them. If we are so worried about Nuclear why arent we doing anything about Iran or North Korea.

You completely made no point about Iraq

no pont at all.... there is one person to blaim and every one knows who..

[Joemeek]

He was a threat to his neighbours. There was a need to protect his neighbours from his aggression; and to protect the people of Iraq, who have suffered most of all from his brutality.

Quote-Saddam Hussein is the first world leader in modern times to have brutally used chemical weapons against his own people. His goals were to systematically terrorize and exterminate the Kurdish population in northern Iraq, to silence his critics, and to test the effectiveness of his chemical and biological weapons. Hussein launched chemical attacks against 40 Kurdish villages and thousands of innocent civilians in 1987-88, using them as testing grounds. The worst of these attacks devastated the city of Halabja on March 16, 1988

So again, should we just have left this "thug" as some people would call him to it ? It still surprises me how some people like to live with their head in the sand.

[gixxerboy1]

He was a threat to his neighbours. There was a need to protect his neighbours from his aggression; and to protect the people of Iraq, who have suffered most of all from his brutality.

Quote-Saddam Hussein is the first world leader in modern times to have brutally used chemical weapons against his own people. His goals were to systematically terrorize and exterminate the Kurdish population in northern Iraq, to silence his critics, and to test the effectiveness of his chemical and biological weapons. Hussein launched chemical attacks against 40 Kurdish villages and thousands of innocent civilians in 1987-88, using them as testing grounds. The worst of these attacks devastated the city of Halabja on March 16, 1988

So again, should we just have left this "thug" as some people would call him to it ? It still surprises me how some people like to live with their head in the sand.

that was was the worst rationality I've heard. So we invade for something he did 15 years ago? We already went to war with him to defend his neighbors. since then. Yes he did horrible things. No what worse things are happening now there.

Even with you rationality. There were a lot of other countries with worse dictators we could have went after

[mcpeepants]

Look at the bigger picture.If you think back to the cold war when America and Russia were producing thousands of nuclear weapons, being that nuclear weapons were never fired, a main part in this was that there was a "return address" if anyone launched first and knowing they would be wiped out also.

With terrorists now, we don't have that return address and this capability getting into their hands would be catastrophic and we know if they got it, they would use it, no question. Therefore shutting these kind of people down is a must.

If you remember, Iraq in 1987 tested several one ton radiological weapons designed to shower radioactive materials on target populations to induce radiation sickness and slow painful deaths.

A sophisticated terrorist group would be capable of designing and building a workable nuclear bomb from stolen plutonium or highly enriched uranium, with potential yields in the kiloton range. This risk must be taken seriously, particularly in light of documented attempts by al Qaeda to acquire nuclear material and nuclear-weapon design information.

Since the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, the uncertain status of nuclear weapons, fissile materials and nuclear scientists in Russia and other former Soviet republics are widely regarded as posing perhaps the most immediate threat of nuclear proliferation and nuclear terrorism. Despite significant assistance from the United States over the last ten years, many of Russias nuclear facilities seem poorly secured, and there is still no comprehensive, verifiable system of nuclear materials accountancy. No one even knows for certain how much nuclear weapons material the Soviet Union produced. With confirmed incidents of Russian-origin fissile materials turning up for sale on the black market, this danger is more than hypothetical.

Or maybe we should have just left them alone, afterall, if we never bothered them, they would leave us alone...right ?

Mutual assured destruction would work with Iran or any other Muslim country just like it work with the Russians and other nuclear powers. They would not give terrorists control of nukes anymore than the US or Russia would. The terrorists are not part of their government nor have allegiance to it and are often very hostile to middle eastern governments and want to overthrow many of these middle eastern governments. These terrorists could use nukes against the government that gave it to them or use it for blackmail or get use US recognition and support to overthrow the government. I haven't heard about Iraq testing radialogical weapons in 1987 but the US government didn't seem to be concerned if it was true because we were busy supporting Saddam in the Iran-Iraq war as well as when he was gassing the Kurds and Iranians.

[mcpeepants]

He was a threat to his neighbours. There was a need to protect his neighbours from his aggression; and to protect the people of Iraq, who have suffered most of all from his brutality.

Quote-Saddam Hussein is the first world leader in modern times to have brutally used chemical weapons against his own people. His goals were to systematically terrorize and exterminate the Kurdish population in northern Iraq, to silence his critics, and to test the effectiveness of his chemical and biological weapons. Hussein launched chemical attacks against 40 Kurdish villages and thousands of innocent civilians in 1987-88, using them as testing grounds. The worst of these attacks devastated the city of Halabja on March 16, 1988

So again, should we just have left this "thug" as some people would call him to it ? It still surprises me how some people like to live with their head in the sand.

Saddam was weaker than most of his neighbors because the sanctions devastated Iraq. If we were so concerned of protecting Iraqi lives, we wouldn't of put sanctions on Iraq which only hurt the poor and middle class. These sanctions lets to hundreds of thousands of deaths and made the Iraqi more dependent on Saddam for food etc and hence less able to overthrow him. More so if we were so concerned about the Iraqis, we wouldn't of support Saddam as he was doing these crimes to Iraqi citizens and Iranians.

We should of left Iraq alone and got rid of the sanctions and the no fly zones. We could of had direct talks with Saddam the included sanctions and a non-aggression treaty. Also, with out sanctions, the Iraq middle class would rebound and be able to challenge Saddam instead of being dependent on him for handouts.

[mcpeepants]

that was was the worst rationality I've heard. So we invade for something he did 15 years ago? We already went to war with him to defend his neighbors. since then. Yes he did horrible things. No what worse things are happening now there.

Even with you rationality. There were a lot of other countries with worse dictators we could have went after

If we were so concerned about human rights, we would of peace keepers to Democratic Republic of Congo during the 2nd Congo War (1998-2003) which killed almost 4 million mostly due to preventable stuff like starvation and disease.

[RA]

I'm sorry but do you realise Al-Qaeda wouldn't be there cutting off heads if we did not invade Iraq. More civilians have died in Iraq since we liberated it Then the same amount of years prior to it.

How can anyone not admit Iraq is a disaster.

You dont know that at all.